Tag: the mandalorian (tv show)

In Jon Favreau’s latest snaps from the set of The Mandalorian, he shares two props that might look familiar. The first is an ice cream machine, which you may remember from The Empire Stikes Back, or perhaps the traditional Running of the Hoods. The other is a tad more obscure (well, as obscure as anything Star Wars really gets – it’s an Amban phase-pulse blaster (or something inspired by it) that originates with the first appearance of Boba Fett in the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Who wields these objects – if they even end up as anything beyond scenery – is yet to be seen, but neither Willrow Hood nor Boba Fett are entirely out of the question.

We know who The Mandalorian directors are, but Making Star Wars has learned what episodes they’ll be actual directing. The official release only specified that Dave Filoni was doing the first, but MSW has him, Deborah Chow, and Rick Famuyiwa each directing two episodes, with Bryce Dallas Howard on the fourth and Taika Waititi taking on the (season?) finale. The eight-episode number comes from MSW’s earlier reporting; an earlier report has it at 10, but shortening the load is one way to get the most out of a rumored $100M budget.

MSW has been killing it on this show – in addition to all their recent scoops, they were the first to report that Mandalorians were involved back in August. We don’t have much reason to doubt them when it comes to the show.

We get our first official look at Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, plus a director list. The first episode will be directed by Dave Filoni, and other directors will include Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones), Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Bryce Dallas Howard (Solemates), and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok).

The series is being written and executive produced by Favreau. Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy, Colin Wilson and Karen Gilchrist are also producing.

Still nothing official on the cast (who’s in the armor, Lucasfilm?), but Making Star Wars has some evidence (though probably not for the armor-wearer, though who knows) as they continue their set reporting.

Jason Ward at Making Star Wars has it “on good authority” that Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars series will begin filming in southern California as soon as next week… And they have set photos. It certainly looks like Star Wars.

If filming is indeed that close, that could mean that some sort of official announcement is on the horizon as well. (Though maybe not, as we have no real benchmarks for how a live-action Star Wars series would be promoted.)

Officially, we know from Favreau himself that the show is set seven years after A New Hope (so, three years after Return of the Jedi) and will feature all-new characters. The show will drop on Disney’s upcoming streaming service and is said to be budgeted for a high-end $10M per episode. We don’t have an ETA on the series, but the streaming service is expected to launch in 2019.

The service will likely cost less than Netflix, though. And it won’t be totally void of Star Wars – in addition to Episode IX, there’s Jon Favreau’s live-action series, and given they’re getting new The Clone Wars episodes, we can expect the rest of the series as well – plus Star Wars Rebels, which has yet to stream at any non-Disney outlets.

The New York Times takes a look at Disney’s upcoming streaming service and executive Ricky Strauss, who has oversight of the programming. But for our immediate purposes, there is one new nugget here: Jon Favreau’s live-action Star Wars series has a rough budget of “$100 million for 10 episodes.”

“‘Star Wars’ is a big world, and Disney’s new streaming service affords a wonderful opportunity to tell stories that stretch out over multiple chapters,” Mr. Favreau said in an email. He added of Mr. Strauss: “Marketing is about telling a story, and his background in that area allows us to collaborate and create new content.”

$10M an episode is roughly equivalent to the episode budget for past episodes of Game of Thrones. The final season of that show is now up to $15M an episode, per Variety last year. High-end TV episodes generally come out to about $5 million-$7 million an hour. The $10M price tag also puts this in the range of The Crown, which is one of Netflix’s most expensive shows.

We also get a timeline for when Disney’s new movies will stop rolling out to Netflix: March’s Captain Marvel will be the first to go to the new service, which means we can expect Solo on Netflix.

While Star Wars Twitter was all aflutter about Ewan McGregor attending last night’s Solo premiere (in light of the afternoon’s big rumor), it was Star Wars TV guy Jon Favreau who ended up slipping us some news. Favreau, who voices Rio Durant in the film, first told Anthony Carboni on the official livestream that he’s written about half of the first season of his upcoming streaming show.